Issue Seven - 16th March 2016

Welcome to the seventh issue of our new e-newsletter Talking Trees. 

As ever, we’d appreciate you taking the time to give us some feedback about the newsletter. Please feel free to pass it on and share it with friends and contacts.

Willow class pupils (age 10-12) have been doing some amazing art work this term, including some vibrant volcano pictures for the Geology main lesson block, which with their bold colour blends, help the children to be fired up for hard work!

Birch class pupils (age 14-16) are showing their creative and artistic abilities across a range of disciplines this term. In art lessons they have done some amazing work on self-portraiture; in gardening, the class engineered a solution to fill their new wildlife pond with water when the hosepipe proved to be too short; and in drama, in preparation for ‘Aladdin’, the pupils of Birch class are painting beautiful scenes on their stage backdrop and developing the characters in such a way that the anyone who comes to watch the forthcoming performances, is promised a highly entertaining experience.

Oak class pupils (age 12-14) are in the last year of lower school, and each pupil in the class is working hard on his or her end of year project. The projects vary enormously from pupil to pupil and we’ll document more about these in future e-news. Meanwhile, almost every break-time one pupil can be seen working away in the outside woodwork area on his project to build a canoe. In the picture above he is working on the ‘Stem’ of his canoe.

The younger pupils of Maple class (age 6-8) have been playing games of snakes & ladders with one another on boards they have drawn themselves. They worked together with number sequencing, made their own counters and enjoy playing together whenever they can.

Sequoia class (age 8-10) have begun their study of Norse Mythology, where they have been learning about how the dwarves are able to craft silken wolf-binding ribbons out of ‘impossible’ things, such as the breath of a fish and a bird’s spittle.

Here are some of the impossible things that Sequoia pupils have come up with:

The end of the sky, the thorns of a riddle, the white of the clouds, the kindness of people, the breath of a fire, the middle of the ocean, the lightness of the darkness, the heart of a sword, the end of time, the sound of a tree growing. 

UPPER SCHOOL FACT - You may not know……that although our oldest class (pupils age 16-18) is now in it’s second of a three-year school leaving qualification (the Steiner School Certificate), we can still take new pupils of this age and they can choose to enroll for the qualification. Contact us for more details.

News from kindergarten

King Winter has come to kindergarten and the children have enjoyed the wolves, bears, foxes and owls that have gathered around him on the nature table, along with the little duck Shingabis. We have cut paper snowflakes, and hoped for snow.

We have cooked hearty soups and shared warm berry cordial (and our colds).

We have lingered over the washing up and enjoyed the warm water. 

And we have dressed in warm layers, pulled on our boots and braved the outside, defying the Great Chief North Wind, sliding on ice, crunching over frost, and built a giant ice mountain. 

Then, like Shingabis, we have sat back in our chairs and warmed our little (webbed) feet in front of the fire.

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